Malancrav

Guten Tag!

This is a fitting greeting considering Jimmy and I were about to leave Sighisoara and embark on a two day adventure in the tiny Saxon hamlet of Malancrav, Romania---Malkrog in German.

Malancrav is renowned for having a tiny fortified church with the only fully intact frescoes surviving from the pre-Reformation days. In this part of the world it's important to note that you cannot intermix the terms town and village. A town connotes a community that has stores, shops, perhaps a post office. A village is significantly smaller---and a village is where we were headed to spend the next two days.

Malancrav is about 45 minutes outside of Sighisoara, tucked away from the main road. Our directions for getting there said, "When you reach Laslea, turn at the shop. . ." The shop. That sums it up. Laslea was definitely a village, and Malancrav is much smaller than Laslea.

The way we ended up in this town and at this guest house is two fold. I had read that the church at Malancrav was beautiful and I was intrigued by the thought of the frescoes. Also, I was interested in things we could take in on our way from Sighisoara to Sibiu, and this was between the two. The way we actually ended up deciding to stay here, however, is that a friend sent me a link to the Mihai Eminescu Trust, a trust started in England with the purpose of saving the Saxon churches in Transylvania and helping the local citizens develop sustainable tourism, including developing the skills with which to renovate and restore these and other historic buildings. Under the reign of Ceacescu, Romania's infamous communist dictator, brick masonry and many other skilled crafts were outlawed in favor of using "modern" materials such as poured concrete. To a great extent, many of these skills were lost, and the trust seeks, among other things, to help restore these and other skills to the local community. For anyone who is interested, here is their web-site.

http://www.mihaieminescutrust.org/content/nd_standard.asp?n=82

The guest house was 50 Euro a night which was a great deal more than we would normally pay in Romania, but we decided it was worth it to splurge for two nights if we were able to stay in a traditional, historic,Saxon home, in a small village, and experience village life, as well as having the guest house attendant prepare us traditional Romanian meals.

The drive from Sighisoara was beautiful, and we arrived around 2:30 in the afternoon. Our directions, provided by the trust, told us to drive past 6 bridges, and the house would be mauve with ochre shutters. The town is laid out in such a way that when you arrive, the main row of houses is on your left, and a stream is on your right. There are little bridges crossing the stream at intervals, and about 2/3 of the way down the row of houses a road turns off to the right with a sign indicating the Biserica Luterana up the hill. This road also leads to a row of houses on the other side of the stream. We actually saw a lot of mauve houses with ochre shutters, but we finally reached the sixth bridge. There were some children out playing. Jimmy was trying to figure out where we should put the car when a little boy approached me and asked us in English if we needed help. I told him we were staying in the house and he said his mother was the person we needed to see and he would go get her. I waited near their gate and pretty soon a lady came out, wiping her hands and apologizing that she had been working in the garden.

She introduced herself as Mihaila, and she took us next door to the guest house, unlocked the gate, and showed Jimmy how to get the car inside. I should mention that most of these homesteads are comprised of a house that sits right on the road, with a high gate that opens into the yard next to the house. People seem to close up their yards are night.

Esplanade of Plum Trees Alongside House

Gate Entering Into and Out of Yard

Drinking Water

Shortly after we arrived the young woman who is the Romanian contact for the Mihai Trust stopped by to introduce herself. Her name is Andrea Rost. She is a native of Malancrav. She was accompanied by a German student named Karen who was in Romania doing volunteer work with the trust. They offered to give us a tour of the Apafi Manor House in Malancrav and to point out some other sights such as the orchard and the home of the church caretaker. We agreed to meet them in a few minutes to drive up to the manor. After I took some photographs of the inside of the house we were off. We climbed into Andrea's truck next to a big pile of spring onions she was taking to her aunt in Sighisoara.

As I mentioned in a previous post, this region of Romania used to belong to the Kingdom of Hungary until the Treaty of Trianon in 1918. Starting in the 13th and 14th centuries Saxons were offered semi-autonomy in exchange for helping protect these lands from invaders. This meant that Saxons typically administered things in the region and not Hungarians. The Apafi family is an exception. They were rewarded a tract of land for loyalty to the king, on which they built a manor house. Eventually when the family died out, the manor house was taken over by the Saxons of the area and was used for community events like weddings and other celebrations.

Andrea explained that during the Communist reign, there was no money to maintain the manor house and it fell into disrepair and ruin. She remembers how it was an old, run-down, abandoned house when she was a child. When the Trust began working in the area they attempted to restore to the house as closely as they could to what it had been. As a part of this process they interviewed elderly people in the community to find out what they remembered of the house. These citizens remembered details like the foyer had had many mirrors hanging in it, or the room to the right of the foyer had been a library. The Trust has attempted to furnish the house with period furniture or crafts made right there in the village. The furniture that is not period furniture was made by a Malancrav carpenter. The tablecloths and curtains were made by the village weaver. The candlesticks were made by the village blacksmith. They had really done a good job of trying to return things to the way they would have been. Unfortunately I do not have pictures of the inside of the building.

Something that was really interesting to me was the accuracy with which the elderly citizens were able to recall how the manor house had looked over 60 or 70 years ago. Andrea told us, for example, that they had inquired about the garden, and the citizens recalled there being formal gravel walks laid out, as well as a fountain in the center of the front yard. When the excavations began, they discovered evidence of the walkways, and of the fountain, in exactly the spot where the elderly citizens had told them these things could be found. I can imagine it would have been exciting and wonderful to be one of these older citizens who had seen the beautiful community and the manor house fall into disrepair during the Communist era, and to be involved in restoring it to its former glory.

Here are pictures of the outside of the Apafi Manor House.

Entrance of Apafi Manor House in Malancrav, Romania

Apafi Manor House in Malancrav

Right Wing of Apafi Manor House

Here are some pictures of the ring of chestnut trees to the left of the front porch, facing the house. Andrea told us the Saxons typically planted rings of chestnut trees which is where they held their dancing circles during celebrations. In Malancrav they have revived the traditional Saxon dances on holidays.

Chestnut Trees in Front of Manor House

Dancing Circle

The women of the village who act as caretakers for the manor were inside doing their spring cleaning, and their children were outside capering around in the yard.

Here is the fountain in the center of the front yard, surrounded by gravel walkways.

Fountain and Formal Walkways

Here is a picture of the orchard which extends behind and above the manor house.

Malancrav Organic Orchard

I should mention at this point that the Apafi House is available for tourists or conference groups to rent out. While I enjoyed our guest house immensely, and preferred its coziness and intimacy, I think it would be really cool to be part of a large group or conference renting out the house. I can imagine it would be a beautiful place to hold a wedding or other celebration, or just to spend a few days.

Andrea and Karen had to head back to Sighisoara on business, so Jimmy and I parted from them and took the path that meandered down the side of the hill to the church and the lower village. The sky was darkening and it was about to start raining, but we managed to do a little exploring and see inside the church before the rain began. Here are some pictures I took approaching the outside walls and the inner courtyard. Pictures were not permitted inside the church.

View of Malancrav Church from Yard of Apafi Manor House

Here is the fortified wall approaching from the outside of the keep.

Fortified Wall from Outside the Keep

Fortification in Malancrav Church Enclose

Trees Inside Church Yard

Here you can see the walls of the church itself.

Church Walls

Windows of Malancrav Church

Malancrav Lutheran Church

Church Tower

The inside of the church is mysterious and beautiful. The frescoes add an air of age and mystery that I haven't seen in any other church in the region, although there are more churches yet to be discovered. At this point the rain started to come down and so Jimmy and I made our way back to the house to sit under the covered patio and watch the rain on the dandelions. I have related the details of our meals and Mihaila's hospitality on the next page.

Thursday

On Thursday the rain stopped shortly before lunch and Jimmy and I set out to take some pictures of the church in the sunshine. Here is Jimmy locking the gate.

Jimmy Locking the Gate

Barn Across from Guest House

Well

Willows Lining Stream with Church in the Background

Here is last year's May Pole. May Day was a few days away, and you could see they were piling up wood for the bonfire and were preparing to hoist a new wreath.

Last Year's May Pole

May Pole

Here is a bench by the stream. The afternoon we arrived I saw an old man and old woman sitting on it, looking at the water.

Bench by the Stream

Apparently the bus stops in Malancrav, although I never saw one. I guess these people do need a way to get to the big city every once in awhile, and a bus is probably a lot faster than horse and carriage.

Malancrav Bus Stop

Here is the sign indicating the Fortified Church.

Fortified Church Ahead

At this point the road to the church turns away from the main town road and goes for a few steps along what is the second and only other "street" in the village. It then starts winding up toward the church. The view on the walk up is beautiful.

View of Town from Church Hillside

Pathway Leading from School to Church

It was a gorgeous day for going back to the church. We wandered all around the outside of it, taking pictures. We also wandered through the edge of the orchard.

Outer Fortifications of Malancrav Evangelical Church

Church Tower in the Sunshine

Rooftops of Malancrav from Church Hill

Evergreen Tree on the Orchard's Edge

Here is the wood shed that belongs to the manor house. The house is heated by water pipes in the walls, and the water is heated by a wood burning fire.

Manor House Wood Shed

Here is a picture of the ring of chestnut trees in the sunshine.

These are some shots of the church from on the hill by the manor house.

Check Out the Wall 

Church Through the Trees

We walked back down to the village by way of the high road that leads from the village up to the orchard and the manor house. We walked by the orchard and took some pictures of the orchard manager's farmyard. Here are some Romanian haystacks. You see these all over the country.

Romanian Haystack

Farm Yard

As we wound down towards the village we passed a house with the neatest little garden. It was so organized and so pretty.

Catholic Romanians belong to the Romanian Orthodox Church which is a branch of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. They celebrate Easter later than we do in the West, and when we were in Malancrav, Easter had only been the previous week. Many houses had Easter decorations up. Here is an example of what we saw at many houses.

Easter Decorations

I love this next picture. The colors are so vivid. Trust me, a tractor in these parts is a rarity. More often than not we saw horses plowing the fields, or many people hoeing them.

Here are the willows lining the stream banks across the road from the guest house.

Willows 

Here are some pictures of the backyard at the guest house, and the hillside behind it.

Dandelions in the Backyard

Backyard and Hillside Beyond

Later that afternoon Jimmy and I drove to the town of Cris, and then came back to Malancrav where we walked up to the old Saxon burying ground (now the town burying ground) and took some pictures.

Jimmy Climbing to Malancrav Cemetery

View from Old Saxon Burying Ground in Malancrav

Graves in Malancrav Cemetery

Trees in Hillside Cemetery

Thorn Trees Flanking the Cemetery

Path Leading from Cemetery

Little Romanian Lasses

The little girl in the orange pants had followed Jimmy and I in the morning when we took a walk, then after lunch she and her friends were pulling a wagon near us, waving at us and trying to get us to look at them. On our way home for supper I saw them sitting on the stoop and I asked them if I could take their picture. I showed it to them after I took it and was rewarded with two huge, very sweet smiles.

This just about does it for Malancrav. The sunshiney slope with the beautiful and mysterious little church will not be forgotten by either of us very soon.